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Honey Swamp's Frights, Camera, Action! - Hauntlywood diary
Cover If you don't want me to snap at you, sugar, keep your claws off my diary! 2 April Mama Swamp has always said that navigating the waters of New Goreleans gentility is tougher than a cypress stump, but looking at what's waiting for me this year, I'll swear high society has nothing on high school! What with advanced film studies, the school newspaper, Fearbook photography, and all those lil' social engagements a lady must keep, my calendar is filling up faster than a cistern in a hurricane. Nothing to fret about though, as I've formulated a ghoul-proof plan to make this year a success: # Create a student film that simply overflows with passion and originality # Impress Mr. Rougarou, my film teacher, so very much that he enters it into the annual Bayou Boovie Fest # Win accolades galore from the judges for my breakout cinema-togre-phy. # Get discovered by Hauntlywood and move out west to work with the monstrously talented SoFeara Gorepola. We'll make a divine boovie-making scream team! My student flick last year—"Lurking on the Levees"—scared a major coup thanks to my expert eye for film decomposition, but the script was... well, just a teensy bit lacking, I must confess. Visually I'm always top of my class, but I'll be honest; cryptwriting is not my forte. That's why this time I'm going with a much more "cinéma scarité" approach—my neck of the woods is fairly alive with true stories to tell! Now I just have to find a subject that screeches "Hauntlywood", and I'll be all set. 10 April Creeping kudzu, I do wish my hair would behave! I've been so busy dealing with the humidity I've hardly had time to think about anything else. Monsters outside this little soggy neck of the world don't know how lucky they have it with the weather; I may have been born here, but my lovely locks have not adapted. Lately they've been either limp as a wet noodle or more ornery than an itchy gator. I should whip up a batch of my famous smoothing marsh mud and see if that helps. A ghoul has to look her best, even if I'm more comfortable spending time behind the camera than in front of it. 19 April My mama has, at least to my mind, a particularly unusual fascination with vampire royalty. She can tell you all the queens and their names and who their families were down to their 20th generation. She also has a whole bookshelf just stuffed full of stories about the "missing vampire queen" and who she is and where she may be hiding, and if the current jewel they use to detect who the true queen should be is real or a fake. There have been supposed sightings of her all over the world. One ghoul even wrote a whole book that says the missing queen has actually been unliving her life as a high school student. Now I know some drop dead debutante divas in my class that would give any royal highness a run for her money when it comes to acting like a queen but none with the pedigree for it. So, although I don't pay much mind to it, I have to say it has been rather interesting here lately, especially since now the news is saying that the new vampire queen has been found at... a high school. Now there's something you might be able to turn into a film or a book. 25 April Today in film studies we had to give a presentation about our industry scream job. Most of my ghoulmates talked about being cryptwriters, directors, and boovie stars, of course; I was the only cinema-togre-pher in the class. Not that I'm all that surprised, mind. Most monsters get into booviemaking to see their names in lights, but cinema-togre-phy is a lot of responsibility without nearly as much recognition. A cineme-togre-pher defines the "look" of a boovie; she's a director's right-hand-monster for everything that you see on screen. The lighting, the camera movement, the special effects—everything has to look its beast if she wants an audience to lose themselves in the film. If she does it right, it's almost undetectable—but if she does it wrong, it's all anymonster will be able to see! I must have made a convincing case, because when I'd finished my presentation, half the class wanted to change their focus. Mr. Rougarou was impressed (all according to plan!) and said he'd be "very interested" to see my finished film, which makes me as nervous as a long-tailed werecat in a room full of rocking chairs! I gotta find a subject, and soon. 2 May Still lurking for the perfect subject for my documentary. So far I've rejected half a dozen concepts, from an exposé on Mardi Claw (too cliché) to a search for the perfect gum-boo recipe (mine, of course, so it'd be a hideously short film). So far, nothing quite has that spark of inspiration I crave. My friends, bless their scary-sweet hearts, call me a perfectionist. Which I absolutely am! But unlike them I don't think of it as a weakness. After all, being a perfectionist doesn't mean you do it right the first time, every time—it just means never giving up until you're satisfied, even if that means you have to do it a hundreds times. That's how truly great art is made. Rotten Scaresese or Alfeared Hitchshock never would have given up after trying just one measly lil' time, and neither will I. Besides, I still have a hundred other ideas I have yet to give a fair shake—a little more time and screesearch should have me in the pink. 5 May It was club picture day; always a busy one for the Fearbook team. I'm still learning about film, but photography will always be my first and dearest love—even when it's just snapping shots of my ghoulmates making freaky faces. The only fangup was a couple of vampires sneaking into every photo—of course, their faces didn't show up, but the out-there accessories they were wearing sure did! It was so funny I about fell out laughing... and then I realized we'd have to do all the shots again. Sigh... so not scare. 10 May I took some time this weekend to haunt around Jackson Scare, looking for inspiration for my boovie. The deadline is still far off, but time is flying by and I have to admit I'm getting a lil' bit nervous—what if inspiration doesn't strike in time? I've got a half-dozen half-shot films, but nothing I can really call a boovie yet. And I want it to be good enough to blow away not just Mr. Rougarou, but all the judges at the Bayou Boovie Fest. I had some coffee and boue-uiets at the Cafe du Moau, watching the tourists stroll by, but still nothing came to me. If fangtastic southern cooking can't make your brain give up the ghost, what can? I clearly need to shake the ol' idea tree a little harder and see if something else falls out. 14 May Last night, Mama hosted a dinner for some visiting digniscaries and asked me to lend a claw with the cooking. Entertaining is a big part of a Southern gentleghoul's repertoire, and you gotta be good at it. Photography isn't my only skill! I come from a long line of excellent cooks on both sides—Mama's always said one of the reasons she married my daddy was for his dead beans and rice! It's hard work, but between the two of us Mama and I kept the ladies and gents grinning all evening. Eventually talk turned to famous New Goreleans legends. It's an old town, and hauntings and happenings are all around. Our frights are famous and our mausoleums are second-to-none! One of the monsters in attendance mentioned the legend of the Bayou Bijou, and I sat right up. I'd heard of her, of course, but had no idea she was still floating. I should mention, "she's" a ghost ship, rising from the waters and floating across the bogs in the dead of night, with the famous plays and performers that appeared there still echoing on her stage. I asked the gentlemonster why this information wasn't better-known, and he said it was because the Bijou is so deep in the swamp that sightings are rare, and information rarer still. But nowhere in the bayou is unreachable for a Honey Swamp. Finally, an idea with bite! 15 May There are advantages to being born and raised in the bayou—you get to know the lay of the land like your own scales. It was the work of just a few hours tracking through the swamp to find where the ghost ship rises. Seems she only appears on the full moon—so I had to lie in wait for a bit, but patience is one of my many, many virtues. Pretty soon I had the first-ever footage of the Bayou Bijou in all her beauty! It'll take a few more stakeouts, but I think I can finish my boovie in time for the festival—and with a subject so unique and fabulous, it won't be hard at all to make a film worthy of recognition. Just wait, Hauntlywood... Honey's comin'! Category:Frights, Camera, Action! - Hauntlywood diaries Category:Honey Swamp logs